Carding machine



Jqly 6, 1937'.

P. VAN HlLLE-ET AL CARDING MACHINE Filed Aug. 31, l934 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 July 6, 1937. P. VAN HlLLE ETAL. 2,036,308

CARDING MACHINE Filed Aug. 31, 1934 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 July 6, 1937. VAN HILLE ET AL CARDING MACHI'NE Filed Aug. 31, 1954 3 Sheets-Sheet s Fig. 9.

Patented July 6, 1937 SATES 'r FFICE CARDING MAGHINE coing, Nord, France Application August 31,

1934, Serial No. 742,328

In France October 3, 1933 1 Claim.

'lhe present invention relates to carding machines used for loosening masses of textile fibres, straightening the filaments, rendering them parallel and cleaning them.

In practice these operations are effected by carding but as is well known repeated carding has. the disadvantages of tearing, fatiguing and breaking many of the fibres, .of holding back and piling up a large number at each carding or working point and of rolling up some of them into neps, and thus resulting in a large percentage of noils and loss and depreciation of the material being worked upon.

The object of the invention which applies more particularly to fibres of some length such as W001, various kinds of hair, silk, sohappe, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, etc., is to remedythese disadvantages by suppressing or at any rate reducing as much as possible the multiple carding or Working points of the standard carding machines at present in use, in which the disadvantages in question are particularly noticeable with fibres of great length.

To this end the invention has for its object improvements consisting in converting the tangled mass fed into the machine at its entry or before lelized and well combed fibres, by submitting the said massfor this purpose to one or more highly repetitive loosening-combing operations; the improved machine in order to accomplish the loosening-combing at entry comprises one or more devices located following the feed rollers and which comprise a set of movable needle carrying bars forming combs having a very rapid circular or rectilinear movement of translation during which the needle bars remain constantly parallel with themselves or substantially so, and also with their needles pointed to the same direction, these needle bars being disposed so that their needles enter and leave the material preferably perpendicular thereto or at least at an angle in the neighbourhood of a right angle.

In addition to the loosening, the combing and the parallelization of the fibres, the rapid beating of the mass by the needle bars causes a considerable quantity of the impurities tofall out which greatly facilitates the subsequent cleaning operation.

By operating in this manner important advantages are obtained the principal of which are:

(a) Less fatigue of the fibres, fewer breakages resulting in less waste and improvement in the value of the product; a

(b) More complete cleaning owing to the exits entry into a thin sheet composed of paraltraction of foreign bodies being rendered easier;

An increase in production compared with the usual carding machines not provided with the improvements according to the invention;

(d) Simplification of the operation and thepossibility of constructing machines and sets of machines ata lower price, costing less to maintain and taking less power. Since the invention enables the carding or working points to be suppressed or at any rate reduced in considerable r proportion, either single carding machines can be used in place of duplex machines or the number of and location of the existing members can be left unchanged but their closeness and regulation can be such that they card the leastpossible; this is due to the preliminary loosening and combing effected one or more times at the entry to the machine.

In order that the invention may be better understood and by way of non-limiting examples, some embodiments of the invention are described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 represents a carding machine of ordi--- Figure 4 is a similar view to Figure 2 showing a first modification of the said mechanism;

Figures 5 and 6 are similar views to Figures 2 and 3 respectively showing a second modification; Figures 7 and 8 are respectively a front View and end view showing an arrangement of needle bars which can also be used for carrying the invention into practice and giving the needle bars a rectilinear movement of translation and Figures 9, l0, and 11 are details showing modified. arrangements for effecting loosening andcombing at entry.

Referring to the carding machine shown in Figure 1, this comprises as usual 2. feed conveyor l bringing the material to be worked 2 in the form of a tangled mass charged with impurities to the feed rollers 3 provided with pins, a burring roller or licker-in 4 provided, for example, with a rigid covering of saw teeth between which the fibres enter While the burrs and other impurities remain upon the periphery and are re';

moved into a tray 5 by a bladed roller 6 which rapidly rotates; 1 is the swift or great drum which is rotated suflicientlyrapidly and is relatively large so that the fibres are distributed over a large surface and so that the sheet or slice at its issue shall be of uniform character; 8 is the transferring roller removing the fibres from the licker-in 4 and transferring them to the swift l; 9 is the fancy drum by which the fibres are removed from the pins of the swift i and transferred to the dofier ID from which they are detached in the form of a sheet by the dofiing comb H to be subsequently condensed into slivers and to form, for example, bobbins or another sheet in the well-known manner.

According to the invention immediately after the feed rollers 3 is located a rapidly moving loosening-combing device consisting in the illustrated example of a set of movable needle bars 52 forming combs having a rapid movement of translation along a circle a with their needles always pointed to the same direction. The rollers 3 being provided with strong pins so as to retain a powerful hold on the fibres and turning very slowly, while the needle bars l2 are given a very rapid motion, the result is that the mass 2 of tangled fibres is transformed into a thin sheet 2' of parallelized and strongly combed fibres. As the needles 38 of the bars l2 always remain parallel with themselves they enter the material perpendicularly and leave it in the same way and completely discharge the'fibres they have received from the feed rollers 3 upon the roller brush l3.

The peripheral speed of the brush [3 is a little greater than the speed of the needle bars I2 so that drawing as well as a further loosening and combing of the fibres is effected, especially of the ends released by the feed rollers.

The licker-in 4 accordingly receives from the 'roller brush l3 a thin sheet consisting of parallelized and well combed fibres, whereas in the ordinary carding machine it is necessarily fed with masses, tufts or bundles of fibres slightly and insufiiciently loosened by the breast roller (with a risk of carding and dividing the vegetable impurities at the same time as the wool and rendering their extraction practically impo..- sible). It will readily be understood therefore that cleaning is rendered much easier by the invention and also more complete especially since the rapid beating of the needle bars 12 against the sheet 2' causes many of the impurities to fall out. Owing to the rapid loosening and comb- 7 ing and the repeated action effected at entry by the needle bars I2, as shown in Figure 1 all the usual carding or working points can be suppressed except that formed between the swift 'l and the fancy drum 9 which is necessary for collecting the material and feeding it out in a uniform sheet or slice.

In certain cases, however, particularly with very tangled and felted materials or with some remixed waste fibres, if it is desired to suppress all the working or carding points it will be necessary toincrease the loosening combing operation by slowing down the feed by the rollers 3, which may lead to considerable reduction in the output of the machine. For such cases it may be advantageous to have the swift I combined with some pairs of worker 14 and stripper l5.

combing operation can be effected in various ways.

The drive described in the U. S. patent application Ser. No. 731,951 filed June 22, 1934, by van Hille, can be used, this device being characterized by a differential gear for the purpose of giving the needle bars a practically unlimited speed by a simple and robust mechanism and of maintaining the direction of their needles parallel with themselves during the working of the fibrous material.

When the diameter of the path of the needle bars 52 becomes very small, as is the case when short wool is being treated, a device of the kind shown in Figures 2 and 3 can be used in view of the lack of room. In this device the needle bars H are driven at each end by a disc i 8 keyed upon a rotating shaft H, the end of each needle bar Which passes loosely through the disc It having a crank E8 of which the crank pin 19 passes loosely through a ring 23 eccentric with respect to the disc i6 and guided, for example, by regulatable rollers 2i the spindles of which are carried by fixed supports 22.

A first modification (Figure 4) of this device consists in replacing the eccentric ring 28 by a disc 23 eccentric with respect to the needle bar carrying disc i6 and through which the ends of the crank pins i9 loosely pass. The disc 23 turns loose upon a fixed pin mounted in the support 25 and upon the end of which is fixed a bracket 26 supporting the principal shaft ii. The rotary movement can be transmitted by ropes or belts either to the disc H5 carrying the needle bars l2 or to the eccentric disc 23 guiding the crank pins l9.

A second modification (Figures 5 and 6) consists in providing the ends of the needle bars l2 passing through the supporting disc IS with bell cranks l8, 18' of which the crank pins l9, [9

are guided respectively in circular grooves 21, 21' formed in a fixed support 28 out of register with one another and eccentric with respect to the disc I6 carrying the needle bars l2.

For material with very long fibres such as certain kinds of wool, goat hair, hemp, jute, etc., it may be desirable togive the needle bars l2 a rectilinear movement of translation by mounting them, as shown in Figures 7 and 8, on a chain 29 passing over pinions 3!, the needle bars being maintained parallel with themselves and with their needles always pointed to the same direction, for example, by providing them with cranks i8 and engaging the crank pins l9 thereof by a '12 with a circular movement of translation and with suitable and regulatable drawing between the successive groups or sets A, A of needle bars are provided, the roller brush l3 of Figure 1 then being replaced by a roller 34 furnished with pins.

For some materials, such as short curled wool, a stripping roller 35 (Figure 10) will be added which facilitates drawing by the roller brush 13 in that the roller 35 forces the fibres to be engaged by the drawing brush l3 and thus prevents the material collecting together and passing in lumps.

Further, in the case of short wool, it may be desirable in order to reduce the distance between the feed roller 3 and the drawing and delivering brush 13 so as to avoid holes in the sheet or slice to incline the pins somewhat as shown in Figure 10, i. e. slightly forwardly where they enter the fibres and slightly rearwardly where they leave them. This result can be obtained, for example, by giving the guide grooves 21, 2? (Figure 6) an oval form, or by providing eccentric gears in the differential mechanism of the driving device for the needle bars forming the subject of the above mentioned patent application.

Finally, to obtain very intensive loosening without having to increase the speed of the needle bars or their drawing eifect with respect to the feed rollers, according to Figure 11, a lower group A of needle bars l2 can be provided in combination with an upper group A of needle bars l2 operating in synchronism in the manner of the known intersectin gill boxes.

It Will readily be understood that many variations and improvements in details and various equivalents can be used without departing from the scope of the present invention. For example burring rollers, licker-in rollers, breast rollers etc., can be interposed for improving the cleaning efiect or increasing production.

From another point of View some wools or other textile materials may be better worked upon if they are placed in humid condition upon the conveyor chain and heated, either by heat radiating tubes or radiators, placed within the endless conveyor, or under the needle bars l2, or

formed by the shaft H, or again by the licker-in being supplied internally with steam. Such heating causes the wool to swell, unfelts it and facilitates loosening, combing and burring. Finally, in the drive of the needle bars 92 the addition of springs, Weights, fixed or elastic guides, slides, connecting rods, elliptic grooves, etc., can in some cases avoid the provision of a drive at both ends and thus facilitate the operation of the mechanism.

What we claim is:-

A carding mechanism having a reduced number of carding points comprising slow speed feed rollers, a loosening combing device receiving the fibres from said feed rollers and having 'a greater speed of rotation than said feed rollers, said combing device comprising bars having needles thereon which remain parallel during the rotation of said device so that said needles will enter the fibres substantially perpendicularly and leave said fibres in the same way, a roller brush having a greater peripheral speed than said combing device and receiving the fibres from said combing device, a lieker-in receiving the fibres from said roller brush, a bladed roller cooperating with said licker-in to remove impurities from the fibres, a swift, a transferring roller transferring said fibres from said licker-in to said swift, a

doifer, a fancy drum removing said fibres from said swift and transferring the same to said dofier and a doffing comb cooperating with said doffer.

PIERRE VAN HILLE. ROGER TAIN'E. 

